Calculate field @SQUAREMETERS

[RyanStephany]

Could anyone tell me why calculating the shape.length@METERS works for me, but calculating shape.area@SQUAREMETERS does not.  Area always returns '0'.  I'm using 9.3, and the feature classes are in WGS 84.

Here are 2 examples:

~Length
gp.CalculateField_management(fc , field.name, '!SHAPE.LENGTH@METERS!', "PYTHON_9.3"

~Area
gp.CalculateField_management(fc , field.name, '!SHAPE.AREA@SQUAREMETERS!', "PYTHON_9.3"

[DarrenWiens2]

SQUAREMETERS works for me the way you have it - but I'm using ArcGIS 10. Sorry to ask this, but you're not trying to calculate the area for a line feature class, are you?

[RyanStephany]

don't be sorry, no I'm not calculating the area of a line,  I did find something though. 
It was returning '0' because I was only trying to keep 2 decimal places.  I am getting values, but they do not seem to be in meters squared.  When you tried it in 10 was the output of the calculation correct?

this is part of the actual code

my_fields = {'Polyline':{'LEN': '!SHAPE.LENGTH@METERS!'}, 'Polygon' : {'ARA': '!SHAPE.AREA@SQUAREMETERS!'}} 

gp.CalculateField_management(fc , field.name, '"%.2f" % float('+ self.my_fields[desc.ShapeType][field.name]+ ')', "PYTHON_9.3")

[RyanStephany]

so the field I'm trying to calculate is populated with the same as the Shape_AREA field.
Shape_AREA =  0.000651
my_calculated_field = 0.000651
What_i_want = 6974972.61

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Did you try projecting the file first?

[RyanStephany]

i tried reprojecting in the cursor, but got the same results.

[RyanStephany]

What I don't understand is that converting !Shape.Length@METERS! works for polylines, but !Shape.Area@SQUAREMETERS! for polygons does not do any conversion.